


Chaos

by lferion



Category: Highlander: The Series, Sanctuary (TV), The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Battle of Five Armies, Crossover, Gen, Reading Aloud, The stories are all real, cross-time connections
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-08
Updated: 2014-01-08
Packaged: 2018-01-07 23:35:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1125705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/lferion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The battle was chaos. Battles usually were.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chaos

**Author's Note:**

> Written to a prompt from Morgynleri of: Thorin, Methos, Declan -- Chaos.

"The dwarves were making a stand about their lords upon a low, rounded hill…"

_The battle was chaos. Battles usually were, in Thorin's experience. Azanulbizar has been a mass of bodies and blades in the thick of the press. Ears clotted with the roar and clang and the thick wet sound of metal meeting flesh, eyes seeing nothing more than the foe before one, the friend beside, behind, ahead no more than a glint of steel. Fighting through goblin raids was chaos compressed into a moment. Even escaping the horde under the Misty Mountains was less battle and more fighting off vermin. But this battle, at the gates of his own Mountain, only just regained, it was chaos on the same order as that which had killed his grandfather in truth and his father in spirit. He had little doubt this one would kill him. He could but hope for his sister-sons, the members of his Company, his Burglar. Hope was all he had, in the midst of this cacophonous, grisly slaughter._

_When Beorn plucked him from the wet red mire, he knew he had been right, as bones grated sickeningly in his chest, and his legs sent spears of fire up his spine, but would not move. But he was not gone yet, and perhaps, just perhaps, there was one amend he could make. Bilbo had survived the battle. Somehow, Thorin found the words to speak to forgive, to be forgiven. He felt the hot, wet splash of a tear and did not know from whence it came before all was silence, and he knew no more._

"…and bore him out of the fray."

* * *

Declan put down the book. Of course he had read it before, knew how it ended, who survived and who died. He'd already gotten through the actual Thorin-dying part. But this time the spare, distant words of the 'battle report from ten thousand feet' had not evoked the usual safely penciled and painted Alan Lee-John Howe picture of battle, not even the more immersive experience of Peter Jackson's cinematic drama, but the chaos of the real thing. Only a skirmish, really, his team sent in for an extraction that had proved more challenging than the intel had said it would be. Knife-work, close and bloody and horrible. They'd gotten the man out, but he'd died before the copter got him home, though not before he knew he'd been freed. Years and years ago now.

Why cry over Thorin this time? Over that poor sod? Why now, reading it aloud after seeing the bloody film? He'd thought they'd be picking apart the scene, comparing book to film and commenting on directorial choices. Not bloody tearing up over Richard bloody Armitage/Thorin bloody Oakenshield. Over a bloody book. But here he was.

A handkerchief appeared on his knee (Adam knew better than to sneak up behind him), followed by a long-fingered hand, warm and comforting. Adam's own eyes were unapologetically bright, lashes damp. Adam had been in more battles and chaos than Declan could begin to comprehend, lost more than anyone should have to, and yet, here he was, right there with him, moved by a story. A story they both knew practically by heart.

"Stories put the chaos into a shape, where we can see it and make some kind of sense of it. That's why we tell them. That's why they move us. And I agree, damn Richard bloody Armitage for making us care all over again for a character who in the book is really kind of a pompous cypher." Adam settled next to Declan on the overstuffed couch, a solid, undemanding presence. "Now finish it, so we don't both have chaos in our head all night. I'd rather go to sleep in Bag End than a battlefield."


End file.
